The Litani River
Basin:
The Politics and Economics of Water,
H.A. Amery and A.A. Kubursi
Water is a scarce commodity in
Lebanon, especially in the provinces of the Biqa` and the South which are
almost solely dependent on the Litani River and its tributaries. These
provinces, Lebanon's largest, share a number of common attributes. They are the
country's most rural provinces and its principal agricultural regions. They are
also the least-developed and most impoverished of the provinces, and in them
are found the largest concentrations of Lebanon's Shi`a population. In many
ways also, these provinces fell outside the political and economic mainstream
of the First Republic.
Indeed, the Lebanon of the First
Republic that emerged after 1943 was basically as confessional society/economy
which grew as a natural outcome of the extensive intersection of interests
between Maronite bureaucrats and Sunni trading families. The former group was
primarily interested in developing and securing a stable source of public
finance which, in the context of the prevailing conditions and structure of the
Lebanese economy, could only be based on custom duties on foreign imports. Much
of this activity was controlled primarily by a handful of very powerful Sunni
trading families in the coastal cities of Beirut, Tripoli, and Sidon. These
traders saw their interests best served by a government restricting itself to
building an efficient social infrastructure and maintaining a policy
environment favorable to free trade.
This intersection of interests
manifested itself politically in the National Pact. It also manifested itself,
perhaps in a less obvious way but no less significantly, in an implicit
economic social contract that supplemented the political accord. The terms of
this implicit economic contract called for the public sector to invest heavily
in building an extensive infrastructure of trade routes, ports, airports
warehouses, and communication networks, and to restrict its activity in
promoting competing commodity-producing sectors (agriculture and manufacturing)
or regions which could undermine the dominance and the free flow of imports. It
also called for a pro-free trade, pro-business policy environment with minimal
government interference, including no income or profit taxes, bank secrecy
laws, and a free foreign exchange market. Other sects and regions were
virtually cut out of this framework and the prosperity it engendered.
Lebanon's current economic
predicament is rooted in the unmanaged mercurial successes experienced between
the 1950s and the mid-1970s; and in a less obvious way, in the confessional
structure of the society and economy. The civil war brought in its wake a
massive destruction of infrastructure and productive capital and resulted in
great human loss and displacement of populations. It also brought the end to
the implicit social contract of 1943.
The Lebanese today face the
challenge not only of reconstructing their economy, but also of reconstituting
their society and polity. There is a need for a new social contract. This paper
assumes that such a contract must call for a more balanced economy in which
commodity-producing sectors would moderate the lopsided, services-biased
production structure of the First Republic, and in which the disenfranchised
regions and sects in Lebanon would be represented more equitably
within the system and co-opted into
the mainstream of society and the economy. This is, perhaps, a tall order for a
society and economy still reeling from the impact of civil war and occupation.
There is no alternative, however, to a careful reassessment of Lebanon's
emerging comparative advantage, and the exploitation of its human and natural
resources.
Resources are meager at best and
the international and Arab environments are not conducive at present for
massive aid to Lebanon. The Lebanese will have to make do on their own. This
paper argues that, within this perspective, agriculture and industry will
likely play new and revitalizing roles in the south, the northeast, and other
underdeveloped regions, if they become the focus of the development effort. The
development of the Litani River basin will figure highly in this strategy.
Equally important, however, is the fact that development of the Litani basin
might very well be a necessary action to thwart Israeli designs over this
entirely Lebanese water system.
Water,
Conflict, and Development: The Litani in Context
Water is a natural resource that is
usually non-tradable and has no market value. For geo-climatic reasons, water
is a scarce resource in most Middle Eastern countries. This problem is most
acute in the rapidly developing state of Israel. Israel obtains over one third
of its water supply from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Due to its
scarcity and strong association with economic development, the question of
water takes on a whole new dimension in the hostile political environment of
the Middle East. It has been argued that Israel was in part motivated by its
lack of resources, especially water, when it initiated the 1967 War (Stauffer,
1985; Naff and Matson 1984). Since then, Israel has become dependent on the
West Bank's water resources, and its occupation of southern Lebanon up to the
western bend of the Litani River is raising questions and charges similar to
those raised 25 years ago when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel's
High Water Consumption: An Analysis
There is a general consensus among
hydrologists and water planners in Israel that the country is currently
developing all of its replenishable water stock. Indeed, the gap between water
supply and demand is widening. It is therefore imperative to analyze the
factors which led to this situation. This is done by looking first at
demographic and cultural factors, and then at the ideological factors which
influence water consumption and planning in the state of Israel.
1. Demography and Culture
The majority of Israel's early
immigrants came from developed countries, largely in Europe and North America,
and to a lesser extent from Australia and South Africa (see Table 1). These
predominantly Western settlers "had different (higher) water consumption
habits than the indigenous population" (Naff and Matson, 1984; 33).
Labor statistics from 1950 show
that 30% of Israel's civilian work force, most of which was made up of
Ashkenazi immigrants, had technical and industrial skills. Most of the
remaining population placed in already established villages and in new
agricultural settlements, were given on-the-spot training as farmers. So the
early Jewish immigrants were able to lay the foundations of an industrial and a
rapidly developing Israel, hence creating a higher standard of living than that
in the neighboring Arab countries or in local native communities. This, coupled
with the large number of farming immigrants, translated into a greater demand
for water.
Table 1
Jewish Immigrants by Continent of Origin, in percent
|
Years |
Europe |
America |
Africa |
Asia |
|
1919-31 |
81.2 |
2.5 |
0.7 |
8.9 |
|
1932-38 |
86.8 |
2.3 |
0.6 |
8.3 |
|
1948-51 |
47.6 |
0.7 |
13.7 |
34.6 |
|
1952-59 |
32.1 |
3.4 |
51.9 |
12.4 |
|
1975-81 |
60.1 |
24.0 |
5.2 |
10.3 |
source: Central Bureau of Statistics,
Jerusalem, Israel. No.33,1982; pp. 134-135
As shown in Table 2, Israel's total
water consumption in the early 1980s was three times that of Jordan and twice
that of Lebanon.
Table 2
Comparative Water Consumption
(in MCM/Yr)
|
Sector |
Israel |
Jordan |
Lebanon |
|
Irrigation |
1295 .0 |
465 |
670 |
|
Domestic |
332.5 |
60 |
135 |
|
Industrial |
122.5 |
30 |
65 |
|
TOTAL |
1750.0 |
555 |
870 |
source: Naff and Matson, 1984.
Similarly, the Israeli newspaper Davar
(26 November 1982) reported a wide gap between the per capita water consumption
of Jewish settlers on the West Bank and that of the Arab population in the same
region; while the former consumed 100m3/year, the latter consumed 40 m3/year.
After 1967, Israeli authorities imposed new and strict water regulations on the
Arab residents of the West Bank. Permits to drill water wells in Arab areas
were rarely given, and even then only for domestic purposes. This new policy,
according Davar (26 November 1978), was meant to minimize any interference with
the water being pumped to Israel proper (within the pre-1967 borders) from
there. As a result, in 1977 on the occupied West Bank, 17 wells supplying
Jewish settlements (then inhabited by less than 30,000 Israelis) extracted 14
MCM/year (million cubic meters per year), while 88 Arab wells (Palestinians
then numbered 600,000) were permitted to pump only 9.9 MCM/year (Kubursi, 1982;
82).
This pattern of high domestic and
agricultural water consumption is due to
2. Zionism and Agriculture
The Zionist movement was
ideologically committed to agriculture, as it initially intended to make the
new immigrants feel "rooted" in their new home, Israel. It also aimed
to secure the "territorial integrity" of the country by firmly
occupying peripheral areas, making the new country self-sufficient in food (for
security reasons), and expanding the carrying capacity of the land so it could
accommodate larger numbers of immigrants.
All of these goals have, by and
large, been achieved, although at a substantial cost to the government. Farmers
in Israel enjoy "cheap or free infrastructure, tax remission, special
credit facilities, and export assistance" (Stauffer, 1985; 77). Moreover,
the cost of water for irrigation is highly subsidized. In the mid-1970s, water
for Israeli farmers was up to three times cheaper than water for any other
economic sector. This continues to amount to a significant cost, as agriculture
consumes over 73% of the total water stock available in Israel.
Government agronomists, according
to Stauffer (1985; 77), estimated that less than one half of the country's
irrigated agriculture was economically productive and only a
"fraction" of its agricultural production was economically viable;
"the rest requires not only water but steady injections of cash
subsidies." This was due to the "negative added value per unit of
water for about half of the agricultural output" (Stauffer, 1982; 46-48).
These massive agricultural
subsidies and uneconomical farming practices necessitate closer analysis. This
will be done by studying the cost of water and labor in the various regions in
the country. For example, is the price of agricultural water in the southern
Negev desert the same as that in the water-rich Galilee region? In these
regions, what is the annual agricultural output per MCM of water per acre, and
how does this affect water planning in Israel? Moreover, can Israeli
agriculture continue its dependence on cheap Arab labor from the west Bank and
Gaza?
Water policy in Israel, which was,
initially guided by Zionist ideology, has become more pragmatic over time.
According to Galnoor (1980; 293), until the mid-1960s, "ideology dictated
policy, and policy guided planning and operations of water institutions. [In
this period] no plan for a new agricultural settlement was ever abandoned only
because the cost of supplying water was too high." Galnoor then concludes
that diseconomies dictated by ideology and manifested in subsidized water costs
could temporarily be tolerated under conditions of conventional or perceived
water sufficiency.
In spite of severe pressures on the
water capacity of the country, ideological objectives are still being achieved
within the limitations of water development, and water policy is such that
agricultural interests prevail. Attempts to permanently reallocate water from
agricultural to domestic or industrial sectors have been mostly unsuccessful.
Although it is clear that the quantity of water for irrigation cannot continue
rising at previous rates, analysts confirm that a change in the ideological
component of Israel's water policy has yet to occur (Galnoor, 1980; Stauffer,
1985).
As mentioned earlier, although the
occupation of Arab land in 1967 augmented Israel's water supply by about 40%,
the Jewish state is utilizing almost all of the renewable water resources
available to it. As water demand rises, its supply is becoming ever more
finite. That raises two fundamental questions: one about the future of the
territories, and the other about the alternative sources of water for Israel.
To answer these questions one must evaluate the Israeli economy's degree of
dependence on the resources of the occupied territories.
Israel's rapidly depleting water
resources has forced it to explore all possible means to increase the country's
water supplies. for example, water desalinization and cloud seeding were
attempted and found to be both uneconomical and unreliable. On the other hand,
the reclaiming and recycling of waste water is more successful, and is now
adopted as part of the national water plan. In 1980, some 20% of the urban
water flow was recycled and used for irrigation purposes, thus freeing some
fresh natural water for use in the domestic sector.
Water planners in Israel intend to
develop some 300 MCM/yr of recycled water through the intensive utilization of
80% of the available waste water in all regions of the country (Galnoor, 1980).
Ambitious as it sounds, the reclaiming of waste water has some serious
environmental and social ramifications. The process of recycling often results
in waste water percolating into aquifers, and polluting them.
Furthermore, there is the danger
that demand for certain produce may be negatively affected by the association
in the minds of the consumers between recycled water and waste. There are
possible risks of long-term damage to soil and crop yields from known and
unknown components of sewage. Despite these problems, reclaiming waste water
appears to be both an economical and a promising water-augmenting technique.
By and large, water is a non-tradeable
resource, so Israel's looming water crisis can only have a local/regional
solution. It is forecasted that Israel will have an annual water deficit of 800
MCM by the year 2000 (Naff and Matson, 1984). Many analysts claim that Israel's
occupation of southern Lebanon, up to the western bend of the Litani, is partly
related to Israel's water needs. For Israel the lure of the Litani is twofold,
relating to both the quantity and quality of the river's water.
Another attractive factor is the
relative ease with which the Litani River may be diverted into the Israeli
water system. Complete control over the Litani, whose annual flow is about 900
MCM, could augment Israel's supply of water by up to 800 MCM/yr. This
represents a 50% increase in the country's water capacity. Israel's surface and
sub-surface water sources have been under significant stress due to scarcity
and high demand, and this stress has precipitated a deterioration of water
quality. For example, the salinity level in Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee), a
major source of water in Israel, is over 250 ppm. This level of salinity is too
high for some of the sensitive and pervasive crops like citrus fruit trees. On
the other hand, the Litani River's water, with a salinity level of 20 ppm,
could, if diverted to Israel, dilute the water of Lake Tiberias.
The hydro-strategic significance of
southern Lebanon is rarely considered an explanatory factor for Israel's
continued occupation of this part of the country. While the security of
northern Israel may well be a factor in this, the Israeli-controlled security
belt potentially may serve a variety of purposes. The only feasible solution at
present to Israel's growing water problem (in terms of water quality, volume,
and proximity of the resource), given the immense difficulty of achieving
regional cooperation on water, is the use of the Litani River. Lebanon's
continuing political vulnerability, as well as the proxy occupation of the
South, make Israel's ambition to "share" the Litani's water with Lebanon
virtually unpreventable. This could be done either through a unilateral water
diversion scheme or through bilateral negotiations with Lebanon, where Israel
could ultimately use the "security belt" as a bargaining chip.
In the latter half of the 19th
century, European Jews pursued the objective of creating a Jewish state in
historical Palestine, to which millions of Jews in the diaspora could
immigrate. Their first major achievement in that direction was in 1917, when
Britain promised to assist the World Zionist Organization (WZO) to establish a
Jewish "national home" in Palestine.
Aware of water scarcity and its
economic value, the Zionist leaders in Europe actively lobbied the French and
the British governments to adjust the northern and northeastern borders of
Palestine to include the whole catchment of the Jordan River and a large part
of the Litani River. These demands were made explicit in a number of letters
from Chaim Weizmann, the head of the WZO, to various British government
officials (Weisgal, 1977, vol 9). In one such letter to the British Prime
Minister, David Lloyd George, Weizmann argued that Lebanon was a "well
watered" region, thus that the Litani waters were "valueless to the
territory north of the proposed frontiers. They can be used beneficially in the
country much further south." Therefore, the WZO considered "the
[Biqa`] Valley of the Litani, to a distance of 25 miles above the bend" of
the river, to be essential to the future of the Jewish national home (Weisgal,
1977; 267).
It was the desire of the WZO that
Israel's eastern borders run a few kilometers east of the Jordan River and thus
include its major tributary, the Yarmouk (Weisgal, 1977; 266-267). On October
30, 1920, Weizmann wrote to Britain's new Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, stating
that
... if Palestine
were cut off from the Litany, Upper Jordan and Yarmouk (Rivers), to say nothing
of the western shore of the (sea of) Galilee, she could not be economically
independent. And a poor and impoverished Palestine would be of no advantage to
any power (cited by Hof, 1985; 11-13).
Zionist demands were, however, not
met when the British Mandate determined the boundaries of Palestine to include
what is today Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Although the WZO failed in its
hydrological demands, the issue was not forgotten. Instead, a situation of
political and military uncertainty developed as a result of which Israel
hesitated and then backed down from any coercive acquisition of Lebanese
territory up to the Litani River (Berger, 1985; Rokach, 1986).
Having access to the Litani was on
the minds of Israeli government officials early in the state's formative years.
The diaries of Moshe Sharett, Prime Minister of Israel in the mid-1959s, reveal
that David Ben-Gurion (the first Prime Minister of Israel), and Moshe Dayan
(Israel's chief of Staff and later Defense Minister) were strong advocates of
an Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River (Rokach, 1986;
22-27). Sharett quotes Dayan as having said in 1954 that
... the only thing
that's necessary is to find an [Lebanese] officer, even just a Major. We should
either win his heart or buy him with money, to make him agree to declare
himself the savior of the [Christian] Maronite population. Then the Israeli
army will enter Lebanon, will occupy the necessary territory, and will create a
Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the
Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel and everything will be all
right (Rokach, 1986; 26).
In the wake of the June War of 1967
and of Israel's territorial gains at the expense of three of its four
neighbors, Moshe Dayan once again reiterated his long standing view that Israel
had achieved "provisionally satisfying frontiers, with the exception of
those with Lebanon" (Hof, 1985; 36).
Dayan's blueprint for Lebanon was
ultimately implemented in 1978 when Israel created the so-called "security
zone" in southern Lebanon. This territory was "officially" under
the control of Sa`ad Haddad, a Christian Lebanese army Major who, in 1979,
declared a Maronite-dominated state in southern Lebanon. Haddad then headed an
Israeli-financed, trained, and equipped Lebanese militia (later renamed the
"South Lebanon Army" or SLA). Until today, the SLA and the Israeli
Defense Forces (IDF) rule over a strip of south Lebanon up to the western bend
of the Litani River.
Israel was not under any imminent
crisis of water scarcity when it occupied the West Bank and the Golan Heights
(1967), or when it occupied southern Lebanon (1978). The declared objective of
both wars was Israel's future security and peace. Having said this, it is
significant that since then, more than 35% of Israel's water consumption
originates from territories occupied in 1967. >From the analysis above, it becomes
clear that an important second objective of Israel's occupation of the West
Bank is an economic one, water being the major factor. A similar goal is
probably being sought in Lebanon.
This suggests a hidden Israeli
objective: one that has a hydrological dimension and is future-oriented. That
is to say, Israel's current policy in Lebanon takes into account its forecasted
water needs. The situation in southern Lebanon resembles that of the West Bank
and the Golan after the 1967 War: an Israeli occupation followed by an enforced
status quo, and then a move to reap the benefits of occupation.
Since naturally-occurring resource
scarcities befall states gradually, they have ample time to carefully plan and
develop a long term or impact-mitigating strategy. This has been Israel's
approach to its onsetting water shortages. This type of scarcity is also a
"real" and not a "perceived" one, as was the case during
the 1973 oil embargo. Therefore, Israel's real and onsetting water scarcity is
neither sudden nor triggered.
Israel's creation of the
"security belt" in 1978 signalled the beginning of Israel's
power-balancing phase in Lebanon. Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon
appears tolerable to the occupier and to the major international powers.
Furthermore, a mechanism of socio-political control and normalization is being
implemented in the "security belt." This strategy injects greater
certainty into future policy decisions which in turn influences the equilibrium
in the balance of power. This approach to water scarcity provides Israel with
an access to new and reliable sources of water. On the other hand, it allows
Israel greater control over the shape of the balance of power and the emerging
structure of expectations, both domestically/economically and regionally/strategically;
hence Israel's assured position as an advantaged state in the region.
On the other hand, Lebanon is left
unstable and without the capacity to develop its resources. Under the First
Republic, this was politically tolerable. The emphasis then was on trade and on
regions populated by the dominant traditional groups of the National Pact.
Under the Second Republic, however, co-opting the Shi`a is vital to the
system's stability and security. The latter is only feasible with complete and
effective control and exploitation of the Litani River. This type of
development of the Litani is a strategic imperative for Lebanon, not only
because it thwarts Israeli designs on the river and invalidates Israel's claim
that Lebanon is wasting its water; but also because it balances and moderates
social and economic tensions that are likely to emerge in the rebirth of a new
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